To date, when printing a desired pattern onto a long fabric such as cloth, which is an example of print medium, by an automatic printer, the long fabric has been conveyed to a predetermined place by a conveying device such as a belt conveyer, and a carriage has been moved that has an ink jet section of printing means provided so as to be moved by a controller in the forward/backward and right/left directions above the predetermined place, whereby a pattern has been printed onto the long fabric.
In this case, pattern data longer than the effective printing region of the predetermined place is allocated to a plurality of regions, and a portion of the pattern is printed on a preceding allocated region by printing means. After the printing, the long fabric is conveyed so that a next drawing region in the long fabric is conveyed to the above-described predetermined place, and subsequently, another pattern is consecutively printed onto an end of the pattern precedently drawn. After the printing, the above-described process is repeated, thereby printing consecutive patterns or patterns of a plurality of components one after another.
However, when conveying a long fabric to a predetermined place by a conveying device such as a belt conveyor, the long fabric under conveyance may be not positioned in the predetermined place and cause a position deviation due to meandering of the long fabric, and/or a slip of the long fabric caused by its contact with the conveyance surface. This raises a problem in that printing is unfavorably performed in a state where the end of the pattern printed in a preceding allocated region in the long fabric does not coincide with the beginning of the pattern contiguous to the above-described pattern.
The present invention has been developed to overcome the above problem. The object of the present invention is to provide an automatic printer that, when a pattern during printing interrupted by intermittent feeding of a print medium is to be subsequently printed in printing a consecutive pattern, are capable of printing so as to prevent the occurrence of a deviation in the joint of the aforementioned pattern with the pattern precedently printed, in the printing of consecutive patterns, in the case where the pattern is printed onto the print medium intermittently fed by a conveying device by an ink jet type automatic printer.